Additive manufacturing systems, such as 3D printers and cell printers, are widely used to deposit multiple layers of natural, synthetic, or biological materials to manufacture objects through processes of extrusion, sintering, light polymerization, mechanosynthesis or electrohydrodynamic forces. The process of additive manufacturing fabricates an object through a layer deposition process, where the additive manufacturing printer keeps adding successive layers until the printed object is complete.
Generally, an object printed by an additive manufacturing printer is based on a production design. Three-dimensional modeling software (e.g., a CAD program) can be used to create a production design for an object to desired specifications. A slicing program can then translate the production design into numerical control code (e.g., G-code), which divides the design into a number of layers and which can then be used to instruct an additive manufacturing printer to print a physical representation of each individual layer of the production design. The goal of additive manufacturing is to print an object that adheres closely to the specifications of the production design.
A printed object can take anywhere from several hours to several days to complete, depending on the size and complexity of the production design. Current additive manufacturing systems are limited in the type of feedback they can provide and the corrective action that they can take after each layer of an object is printed. Often feedback is not provided until the entire object has printed. When feedback is provided during the printing process for an object, it is usually for the purpose of determining whether to stop or to continue printing the object.
In some additive manufacturing systems, feedback is provided by shadows created by the printed object when light is shined on the object. This method is limited, because the shadows obstruct areas of the printed object and prevent precise feedback. Precise feedback in additive manufacturing is useful to maintain quality and reproducible printed objects.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide artificial intelligence feedback control (AIFC) for each printed layer of an object so that timely corrective action can be taken during the printing process for the object. It is also desirable to provide AIFC to achieve the desired mechanical, optical and/or electrical properties of a printed object, as well as to achieve a printed object that closely resembles its production design, or improves upon the production design.